


You Brought Me Back

by FandomLifeTookMyHandAndSaidRUN



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Andre (mentioned), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Jessie (mentioned) - Freeform, Michonne and her zen awesomeness to the rescue, Richonne if you squint, Rick gets emotional, just a sweet Richonne moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomLifeTookMyHandAndSaidRUN/pseuds/FandomLifeTookMyHandAndSaidRUN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of 6A.  Nothing spoilery for 6B.  Just Rick and Michonne having a moment on the porch.  It's the end of the walker herd aftermath, and the wall as been repaired.  They are both taking a moment to breathe.  Rick had to put Jessie and her family down, and it's troubling him.  Michonne reveals that she had a child, and how she came back from the depths of her own despair.  They comfort one another.  Because, isn't that just what they do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Brought Me Back

**Author's Note:**

> Still battling some writer's block, but found this in my docs. Just a sweet moment between Rick and Michonne. I love their gentle way with each other, the way they've been able to reach out and comfort one another (more so Michonne to Rick, but I'm hoping 6B has Rick giving more back to Michonne, she deserves it. And no, I wasn't being pervy there. But hey, if the shoe fits? LOL!)

Michonne peered out the window into the waning light, eyeing Rick on the porch leaning against the post.  She could only see his backside, but the the tension in his shoulders, the height with which he held them, the stress just coming off him in waves.  She grabbed two glasses from the cabinet, pulled the sweet tea from the refrigerator and filled both glasses.  In the short time it took to carry them out onto the porch, they had already begun to drip condensation.

Rick side-eyed her as he approached, eyes going back out over the carnage that lay in the streets.  For two days they struggled to repair the wall that had come down when the tower crashed, and just that afternoon they had finally dispatched the final walker.  Bodies littered the streets and the lawns.  The community had lost several of their own, including Deanna.  And the emptiness her loss brought was felt particularly by all.

“You okay?” she asked as she offered the glass of tea.  Rick took it in his hand, running his fingers over the condensation, not answering her even after taking a long draught and nearly emptying the glass.

“You know, it’s okay if you’re not,” she cocked her hip against the railing next to him, getting little more than the profile of his face.  “I wouldn’t be.”

Rick managed a nod as he put down his glass, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked blankly out beyond the wall.  The few birds made their final flights before resting for the night.  Michonne reached out a hand to Rick’s forearm,.  “We’ll make sure Jessie and her boys are buried together.”

Rick tried to hide his grimace as he turned his face away, his chin wavering slightly.  “How-” his voice cracked and he placed a fist to his mouth, swallowing hard.  “I just can’t get the look on her face out of my mind.  Her final moments on this Earth were watching her children get torn apart.”

“And you did her a mercy by putting that bullet through her head,” Michonne insisted, gently.

“Did I?” his brows furrowed, his voice tight with frustration. His eyes were red rimmed and wet now.  Dipping his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose.  “If anything, I should have put the boys down first, ended their suffering first.  I just…”

“There’s no right answer.”

His shoulders sagged, helpless.  “I keep replaying this in my mind.  If I were Jessie, if that were Carl and Judith going down-”

“Stop.  You did what you had to do in that moment," she insisted.  "There was no time to ponder the various choices, you did what needed to be done.”

“Then why does that give me no comfort,” he hissed.  He swiped a hand at his eyes angrily, at the tear that had escaped his eye.  Backing away from her, several steps to the wall of the house, he slid down and pulled his knees up to rest his forearms on them.  “Nobody should have to watch their children go out like that.”

“No,” she agreed, taking a seat next to him.

“The terror in their eyes, their arms reaching for her.  As if she could save them.  And then she looked at me…” he looked away, unable to stop the onslaught of tears now.

“I won’t tell you it gets better.  And I won’t tell you it gets easier.”  She pulled one of his arms down, and clasped his hand within her own.  “But we’re survivors.  We survive.  We do what we needs to be done, because there is no other choice and there is no one else to do it for us.”

“How does this not bother you?” he asked her, finally turning his face to hers.  His head tipped helplessly back against the wall.

“Why would you say it doesn’t?”

“I’m a mess, for starters, and you’re sitting there all… strength and wisdom.”

“Because I’ve been there already…” she squeezed his hand, looking down at it as she ran her fingers over his scarred knuckles.  He waited, the silence all but begging her to explain.  She turned herself toward him, and looked out at the night sky and the few stars that were now visible and smiled.  “I had a son,” she whispered, eyes brimming with her own tears now.  She squeezed Rick’s hand once more when she heard his nearly inaudible gasp.  “His name was Andre.  We were in a camp, and had just returned from a run when a herd came through.  Walkers got him…”

Despite her trembling lips, she continued.  “I had a son.  He was everything.  The sun, the moon, the stars.  Everything.  And for a long time after I was… empty.  Angry.  Then I found Andrea.  She brought me back from the edge.  But what… fixed it all?  What made me feel whole again?  That was you.  And Carl.  And Judith.  Beth, Maggie, Carol… the prison.  Being human again.”

Rick placed his free hand overtop of Michonne’s.  “So, the fact that you’re not okay?,” she continued, “Is okay.  Because I’m not okay too.  But we will be.  Because there IS more than just this.  There is a future.  We will survive, we just have to make it happen.”  

She scooted back, mirroring him, and pulling his arm to her chest hugging it.  “We’ll make it.”  She kissed his knuckles and released his hand back to him.  After a moment, he reached back, intertwining his fingers with hers.  “I’m sorry… and thank you,” he whispered.

She hummed and leaned her head to rest against his shoulder.  “No… thank you, for bringing me back.”  Together they sat, in companionable silence sipping the last of their sweet tea as the darkness descended upon them, and the night sounds came to life.


End file.
